Learning to Fall
by i-am-loved17
Summary: Nathan is lost and his party life is leaving Lucas to watch his son.  But when two sisters move to Tree Hill to take care of their dying mom, everyone in the small town gets their life shook up.


Learning to Fall

Chapter 1:

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending." – Maria Robinson.

"Why aren't they telling us anything?" The girl sighed as she paced back and forth. "I mean how hard is it for them to drop by and say 'hey, your mom's okay' or 'dude, I'm sorry about your mom, but she kicked the bucket.'"

"Brooke! Sit down before wear a hole into the floor." Malia shouted.

Brooke looked at her sister with a sad face, "But…"

"No buts. Sit beside me wait patiently." Brooke walked to the chair beside her sister and plopped down before laying her head on her sister's shoulder. Here the were once again in the hospital waiting for any news on their mom. She had been in and out of the hospital for the past year and a half with lung cancer and every time her and her sister would drop everything in their life from California to visit their mom in Tree Hill.

Brooke would never tell Malia, but she was completely dependent on her sister for all of her support in the what seemed like a14 hour wait in the waiting room. Malia was so strong and she never gave up hope on their mother's survival, but Brooke just couldn't do that, not when their mom was so close to death.

"Brooke? Are you okay?" Malia asked, lifting Brooke's head off her shoulder so she could see her face. Brooke nodded and muttered something about going to pick up some coffee for both of them.

After looking down the hallway that Brooke walked down to make sure she was gone, Malia went up to the nurse and asked how long it would be for their mother. The nurse looked up to her and pointed behind her. When she turned around she was standing face to face with the doctor. "How's my mom?"

The doctor pointed to two chairs in a corner and led her towards them. "Ms. Davis, your mom is really sick and even though she is okay for now…" the doctor coughed and looked around the room. "Maybe we should wait for your sister."

"Doctor, is she going to be…" Malia started, but was cut off by Brooke coming up and sitting on her lap.

"How is she?" Brooke asked impatiently, ignoring her sister's groaning under her.

"Girls, your mom has very serious lung cancer that is beginning to spread into other parts of her body. We have two options. One, we can put her into a hospice where she will undergo treatment and she might live a few months longer. The other option is that she can live at home where someone would take care of her, she would just need to come in once a week for a check up." When the doctor finished both girls had tears running down their checks.

"How long?" Malia asked, causing both Brooke and the doctor to look at her.

"About five months."

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"Scott throws the ball to Miller. No, he fakes the ball to Miller, he throws the ball to Smith. Smith dribbles the ball to the top of the key. He is going to take a shot, oh wow what a game, Scott just came from behind Smith and grabbed the ball." The announcer said as the crowd cheered. There was so much excitement in the room as the players moved around the court. "Scott takes the ball back to the three point line. He dodges from Jones and jumps up. All eyes are on the ball, it looks good, oh my it looks good."

The room is silent, no one dares to move as the buzzer rings and the score is Lakers 98 and Bobcats 96. Nathan knew at that moment that the result of this shot would determine his future in this team. Before Nathan could process what happened he heard cheering all around him and he felt a pair of arms around him.

"Nathan!" The girl squealed when he turned to face her.

"Sarah." Nathan replied, letting the smile fall from his face.

"Who's Sarah? Don't you remember me from last night?"

"Oh, yeah, I thought you were my sister." Nathan stated as he bent down to kiss her.

The girl pulled away and slapped him, "You don't have a sister. And my name is Allison." Nathan watched her walk away and wiped his face before turning to join the rest of his team.

"Nice, man, real nice." His teammate Jake said as Nathan caught up to them on the way to the locker room.

"I know, but you were at that party last night, I was totally wasted. I didn't even recognize her." Nathan sighed as he sat down on the bench next to his locker.

"Last time I had seen you, you were on the way to 'Aly's house'". Jake finished in a mocking drunk voice.

"How'd I get home?"

Jake put his shirt on and rolled his eyes. "How do you always get home?"

"Lucas." They both stated at the same time. They both turned towards their respective lockers and finished changing from the long game.

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"Hey, I heard the good news. Too bad I, your own brother, didn't have any tickets to the big game against the Lakers." Lucas said as he opened the front door for his brother.

As always Nathan walked through the door and straight to the couch where he flopped down and sighed. "I gave you tickets, I can't help if you lost them. Man, the game went great, we won by a landslide, but overall we played awesome. Oh, thanks for helping me last night and picking me up from…"

Lucas laughed as Nathan gave a look of confusion. "Sarah. Her name was Sarah."

"Right."

"She actually called me. Apparently, you fell asleep right when you got to her apartment and she didn't want a lazy bum sleeping on her couch. I had to give her my tickets to the game so that she would keep quite about where you where all night." Lucas responded as he sat next to Nathan. "Oh, by the way, Daniel is asleep with Amanda."

Nathan nodded and turned on the tv. Lucas just watched his brother in disgust. In the last year, Nathan had transformed from a loving father to a deadbeat dad who spent most nights drunk as can be with random girls. It's not like Lucas blamed him for changing, Nathan had a hard year, but Danny deserved a real family not just an uncle and an aunt.

Truth be told, even though Lucas loved his nephew, he had enough trouble watching his sister after his mom died giving birth to her, he couldn't watch both kid's while working to support them. Nathan paid for all of James's necessities with his large paycheck from being a professional basketball player, but Lucas had a café that needed to be run and every business has expenses.

"Bro, can I crash here tonight? I am too tired to go home tonight." Nathan asked, while he yawned.

"Sure, I'm guessing you want me to keep Daniel tomorrow while you go to film that commercial tomorrow." Lucas stood up and grabbed a pillow and a blanket it at his brother.

Nathan looked at his brother and asked, "What commercial?"

Lucas shook his head and turned away from his brother and headed up a few of the stairs. As Lucas stopped and sighed he whispered. "The one for Nike." Lucas chuckled and finished walking up stairs. When he got to the first door on the right he opened it to find two eyes looking at him.

"Daddy?" Daniel asked, rubbing his eyes.

"No, buddy, it's Uncle Lucas. Your daddy is asleep right now, so go night night." Lucas told the two year old, who responded by closing his eyes. Lucas left the door open a crack and shook his head for the hundredth time today, "Haley, I hope you know what you did."


End file.
